Syntactic structures of Chinese serial verb constructions

This paper examines the syntactic structures of Chinese serial verb constructions with two verb phrases denoting two separate events. It is suggested in Li and Thompson (1981) that this kind of serial verb constructions can have the consecutive, alternating, purpose or circumstance interpretation. Although it has often been argued since Li and Thompson (1973) that constructions with the consecutive, alternating or circumstance interpretation have a coordinate structure and constructions having the purpose interpretation have a subordinate structure, it is argued in this paper that constructions with the circumstance interpretation should, like those with the purpose interpretation, have a subordinate structure. This analysis is grounded on the Coordinate Structure Constraint argued in Ross (1967) and the fact that constructions with the circumstance interpretation can have topicalization without its meaning being affected. Though constructions with a purpose interpretation are, following Li and Thompson (1973), argued to have a subordinate structure, it is suggested that the serial verb phrase should be treated as a complement of the Head verb. The Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG) approach to syntax is adopted as the framework of the analysis, and it is argued that the structures proposed are suitably for computational implementation.